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Art G.7's avatar
Art G.7
New member | Level 1
11 years ago

Why do I have duplicate file names prepended with "._" ?

In all or most of my folders, my file names are duplicated but with a period-underscore "._" appearing before each duplicate.  The duplicates don't open to anything except "This file type can't be vi...
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Robert S.'s avatar
Robert S.
Icon for Super User alumni rankSuper User alumni
11 years ago

As I said above, "._" files are MacOS X system files. The reason you see them is because the Mac Dropbox folder has been placed on a disk volume formatted with a non-Mac filesystem which doesn't respect the hidden attribute of those files. You can delete them, but they'll be recreated by your Mac every time you access those files.

The effect would have been mitigated by ensuring the target volume was first formatted to the native MacOS filesystem. However, I would also note that Dropbox are pretty clear that they don't support removable drives or network volumes.

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